NSF Graduate Fellowship Awarded

​Christiana Martin has been selected to receive a 2018 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program Fellowship based on her demonstrated potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the U.S. science and engineering enterprise.

Christiana Martin is studying the ways that child development is affected by early trauma and neglect, particularly for children who have experienced orphanage/institutional care and children in the foster care system. She is specifically interested in the role that attachment plays in fostering resilience in children affected by early adversity. Her research focuses on epigenetic markers, such as DNA methylation, that help researchers understand how children's biological systems respond to their environment. By understanding the extent to which at-risk children's biological systems are responsive to changes in the environment, researchers can better tailor interventions to mitigate the effects of early trauma and neglect. In this way, her long term goals are to contribute to intervention development for children affected by early adversity.